Coffee cups and cigarettes || A Jonsa Story

Chapter 2

The next time Jon saw his neighbor Sansa, was a week after their first meeting and he was in the laundry room downstairs when she entered. She had her youngest brother in a baby carrier and also three bags of laundry. She looked beyond exhausted with bags under her eyes, like she hadn't slept in days. She was obviously struggling to put all of the laundry into the washer so Jon decided to lend a hand.

"It's fine really, I wouldn't want you to get sick too." Sansa said, embarrassed about her own state, she was sure there was still vomit on the shirt she was wearing.

"Have you been sick?" Jon asked, that would explain why he hadn't seen her once in the past week at Ernie's were he was more often than not to get some work done on his laptop.

"All of the kids were, Arya or Bran must've gotten it at school but that's why I couldn't start work when I intended to. And now I can't start work at all, because my babysitter quit and I can't find an affordable replacement." Sansa sighed, she shouldn't just bombard Jon, a guy she barely knew, with all of her problems, but she was in a new city with no friends or family left to her and he was the only person she had talked to recently that wasn't a child.

Jon was unsure how the respond, he felt for her, really but there wasn't much he could do. He asked anyway. "Is there anything I could do to help?"

"It's really nice of you to ask but unless you can babysit this little guy here or offer me a job where I can take him with me, I'm afraid there's nothing you can do." She retorted, leaning back against the washer.

Then, he thought of something. "I don't know if you've met her yet, but on the first floor lives an older woman, she's divorced, her name's Sherry. She used to be a preschool teacher and when I got on trips, she takes care of Ghost. I can't promise anything but she always tells me how bored she is and she's very nice so maybe you could ask her to babysit until you find someone."

Sansa looked up at him, a grateful smile on her face.

"Yes, I've met her briefly when we moved in, she seemed nice, but I wouldn't just want to barge in and ask her, you know." Sansa answered

"I don't think she'd mind, but maybe I could subtly test the waters before?" He offered.

Sansa was eyeing him with doubt:" You'd do that?"

"Sure, there's no shame in needing some help. You, uh... seem to have a lot on your plate right now." Jon assured her, which brought Sansa near to tears. He had no reason to be this nice to her, but then again, maybe she was just used to people treating her like shit at this point, Ramsay and Aunt Lysa being at the top of the list.
Sansa could only nod, he wasn't wrong, never once would she have thought that she'd end up here, at 20, single-handedly raising her 3 youngest siblings, but most of all having to worry about money. She was done with the laundry now, maybe later she could change into fresh clothes without vomit on them.

"Listen, I wanted to head out to the park later, take Ghost for a walk, you're welcome to tag along if you want, I could teach your sister how to take care of a dog." Jon had absolutely no idea why he just said that, he felt like he was in 9th grade again, asking Chrissy Carpenter out, but she only made fun of him and told the whole school.

But Sansa didn't laugh at him, she gave him a gratuitous smile after a moment of considering and nodded. "That would be really nice, I haven't seen much of the city and Arya is a force to be reckoned with after a week of staying inside."

"Oh, I have no doubt about that." Jon laughed.

Sometime later, the five of them were heading out, Sansa pushed Rickon in his stroller, Bran listened to his iPod but seemed happy to get out for a bit and Arya was proudly holding Ghost's leash under Jon's watchful eye. It was a nice afternoon in late summer, the sun hid behind the clouds but still it was warm out.